PROLOGUE

’ve never really liked the taste of a Smith & Wesson. Especially when it was a forty-five caliber handgun jammed between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. It had a gritty metallic flavor with a touch of sea salt and sweat.

It didn’t matter much that I was located in one of the most beautiful places in the world. In that moment I couldn’t see any of the scenery. I was face down on the concrete floor and under a table in a corner of a dark hangar in Seward, Alaska. Within a couple miles of the blood stain spreading under my face stood majestic mountains, blue white glaciers, and brilliant white icefields. Wilderness spread in all directions where eagles soared, sea otters chortled, and humpback whales breached in the nearby Gulf of Alaska.

But like I said—none of that mattered at the moment. I couldn’t see a lick of it. And none of it could see me. That was the whole point. Why else would I be huddled in the dark next to a pile of smelly airplane tires?

This wasn’t a very heavily populated area. In fact there were only three people within shouting distance at the moment. They weren’t interested in the scenery either. They were looking for me. They were trying to kill me. One of them was stretched out on the pavement just a few feet away. He was trussed up like a turkey dinner, and he wasn’t saying much. Just a groan once in a while. Especially when I kicked him. The sonofabitch.

It hadn’t been my idea to taste a high-powered handgun. It was his. Although it’s true that it rains a lot in this part of Alaska, I wasn’t suicidal just yet. Not on that night anyhow. No, suicide wasn’t on my mind; homicide was.

The other two people were outside somewhere. And they were headed my way. One had a hunting rifle suitable for killing grizzly bears, moose, or an unlucky bush pilot. The other carried a twelve-gauge shotgun. Like the local scenery, she too was beautiful. And deadly. My ears were still ringing from the shot she’d taken at me. She’d missed but the blast tore a huge hole in the side of the metal building where I was hiding. I was starting to regret sleeping with her.

I hunched deeper into the corner when I heard footsteps outside and pulled a rusted-out muffler over me to cover my feet. The hangar was a mess. Boxes of greasy airplane parts and paper cups were strewn everywhere. The cups that weren’t half full of old coffee were filled with nuts and bolts and sheet metal screws.

But for once I wasn’t cursing the mess in the maintenance shop. Old Hubert McCormick was the mechanic that ran this disaster. All of us pilots on the field spent hours helping Hubert search for parts and tools to fix our planes. It’s a good thing we all liked the guy. Otherwise, he’d have been found floating face down in the bay a long time ago. That night I fell in love with the old bastard. I was counting on his mess to save my life.

The huge body lying next to my hiding place groaned again. I thought about shooting him. After all, I was holding his forty-five caliber cannon now, quietly spitting out the tiny chips of teeth and dental work he had recently rearranged. I knew it was only luck that I’d been able to turn the tables on him. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be telling this story. I’d be pushing up blue lupines and Alaskan forget-me-nots in the Seward cemetery.

The cold concrete felt good against my cheek. It cooled the bleeding divot he’d left there with the gun barrel, trying to force me to give up the prize. My face would have felt much better if it hadn’t been for the sand and the gas and the oil and the sheet metal screws I was lying on. Damn that Hubert.

The rest of me felt terrible. My hands were cramped and sore. More blood seeped from matching wounds on the front of both shins, and my feet cried out from multiple open blisters. My neck muscles protested the effort it took just to hold my head off the floor. I think I was in a bad mood too. 
    But I’m getting way ahead of myself. I wasn’t lying there by accident. As much as I hate to admit this, it was my own damn fault. And I need to tell this story from the beginning.